Exit polls after Poland’s presidential election show the country still doesn’t have a new president as no candidate won the absolute majority. The ruling party’s candidate, acting President Bronislaw Komorowski, won the first round of voting. A runoff is scheduled for July 4.

The outcome of the presidential race remains open. According to initial exit polls, the ruling party’s candidate Bronislaw Komorowski won the first round of voting, but fell short of the absolute majority.

According to a telephone poll of 6,000 people who declared they had cast their votes, Mr. Komorowski won the first round of voting with 45.7%. His conservative rival Jaroslaw Kaczynski won 33.2%. Those results were prepared by Millward Brown SMG/KRC for commercial television network TVN.

But according to a different exit poll prepared for the public television TVP, Mr. Komorowski only managed to garner 40.7% of the vote, while Mr. Kaczynski won 35.8%. Voter turnout was at 54.4%, TVP said.

It’s not immediately clear why TVN ordered a telephone poll instead of a regular exit poll. Sociologists earlier commented that telephone polls may be distorted. In this case, the results may be affected even more—pollsters have no way of verifying on the phone if respondents really cast their votes, while in a normal exit poll respondents are surveyed immediately after they leave the voting station.

Both leading candidates already reached out to the eight other candidates, now out of the race. Mr. Komorowski admitted the second round will be tight.

“I want to reach the hearts and minds of all voters who will have to vote in the second round. I will appeal for all votes because each of them may be worth its weight in gold,” he told a party rally after voting stations closed.

Mr. Kaczynski, relaxed and smiling, in his speech after voting stations closed talked about two visions of Poland.

“We want a state for real,” he said.

In one of his earlier interviews, Mr. Kaczynski said he and his brother dreamed of living to see Poland “truly free.” The conservatives frequently criticized Poland’s inefficient public administration and, especially in the double presidential and parliamentary campain of 2005, ran on an anti-corruption ticket.

If there’s a clear winner of the first round of voting, it’s Grzegorz Napieralski, the 36-year-old leader of the post-communist Democratic Left Alliance. Mr. Napieralski has just arrived to the TVN24 studio and looks overjoyed after getting 14% of the vote and bringing his party to the center stage after five years of misery.

Voter turnout in the areas hit in May and June by flash floods was much below the national average. In the nadly affected town of Wilkow, less than 30% of voters cast their ballots by 5 p.m., compared to the national average of 42%.

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